


Putting It Into Words

by fireandhoney



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood Memories, Idiots in Love, Letters, Lost but not forgotten, Love Confessions, M/M, Mentions of alcoholism, Mentions of homophobia, Reichenbach Fall, Serbia - Freeform, You need to lose to realize what you had, bad timing, difficult childhood, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28176006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireandhoney/pseuds/fireandhoney
Summary: "There is something to be said about being forced to write things down. It forces you to face the truth."
Relationships: Johnlock, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 4





	1. On A Blog

There is something to be said about being forced to put down words onto paper, or well, in this case, into a blog. Ella asked me for weeks to start a blog, and I thought I couldn’t, I thought I had nothing to say. But turns out I was wrong, things do happen to me. Many, many things did happen to me. The hardest part is simply in starting, because once you do, the words come flying out. 

I asked myself for a long time whether I would be able to return to a civilian life. How could I get up in the morning if I didn’t have a purpose, if I wasn’t useful? I’d been a soldier, and a doctor, and a bullet through my shoulder ripped me of both titles. Suddenly, I was nothing, nothing but a broken man stuck in a hospital bed, with no value and no occupation. I couldn’t practice the career I’d spent 15 years studying for, and I wasn’t even given a senseless medal to acknowledge the sacrifice I’d done for my country. I woke up in the middle of the night to nightmares of the battlefield, and honestly felt like reality was worse. At least when I was there, in the burning deserts of Afghanistan, sand in my hair and boots and pores, heart beating in my ears, the taste of blood on my tongue, I was something. I saved people, I protected civilians, I covered for my mates. 

I was a part of a team, people depended on me, relied on me. My expertise was appreciated and recognized. But back here, back in London, with no one and nothing holding me back, no one counting on me, no one who’d even notice I was gone…

I didn’t want a quiet house and a boring life in a quaint neighbourhood. That life wasn’t me, and yet, here I was, in the smallest accommodations in the city, walking up and down the same grey stairs, going to the same tasteless restaurants, talking the same walk, always alone, always aimless. I woke up, did nothing, and went back to sleep. 

I went to therapy, as you know, and Ella tried her best to help me. She said I suffered from PTSD, that I was haunted by the war, that I had to readjust to not being in danger, not being scared constantly. She said I had to readjust to peace. But she didn’t understand, did she? You did, instantly. So did Mycroft, within a minute of meeting me. I wasn’t “haunted” by the war, I missed it. I missed the adrenaline, the rush, living on the edge and feeling like it mattered. I missed knowing people’s lives depended on me, I missed being truly useful. 

I was stuck in this peaceful, quiet, easy existence, and I couldn’t deal with it. I needed that high. An addict in need of a fix, I think is how you described me, and wouldn’t that be ironically accurate. I often wondered how much longer I would have stayed deployed if I hadn’t been shot. If I hadn’t been forced home. I probably would have died there: I cannot think of a single reason, or motivation, that could have brought me back voluntarily. I had been set for life, training to go with the intention of never coming back. 

How different would my life had been, but also, how different would your life had been if I’d never come back? Would you have had to fake your death to go after Moriarty, or would you have been able to do it from here? Would you have died that first night, with the cabbie? You would have taken that pill, wouldn’t you? An addict in need of a fix, indeed. 

You saved my life, you know that. You saved my life more than once, you saved my life again and again and again. You saved my life that first day at Bart’s. Back then, every day was a challenge. Every morning, I contemplated, I held it in my hand, sometimes moved it to my lips, and I decided that day wasn’t the day. The day we met was the last time I woke up with the taste of metal on my thoughts: well, until what happened. 

You were fascinating. Quite extraordinary. “Afghanistan or Iraq?” Three words that would change my life forever. Yours too, I believe. With only a glance, only a moment, you could tell much more about me than I’d ever told anyone, more than I’d even told myself. 

You read me like an open book, instantly having access to the deepest corners of my boring life, of my conflicted thoughts. You saw me for who I really was: an adrenaline junkie, passing as the brave doctor and valiant soldier, but who couldn’t even face the challenge of normal life. The valiant soldier who didn’t have the tenacity to keep living, and the brave doctor who didn’t have the courage to end it all. 

And even though you saw all of this, even though you knew my life didn’t have much value anymore, you decided you wanted me. You considered me as a potential flatmate, a potential friend. You valued my opinion, my knowledge and competencies.  
“Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you’d go deeper.”

You wanted to know what I thought of the situation, and considered my input important (or at least, pretended to until you realized it really could be). I’ll never know for sure whether you found me entertaining at first, or actually useful, but it was a nice change to have someone listen to what I was saying without wanting to diagnose me or tell me I was broken. You recognized it, and accepted it, and moved on. And that gave us the possibility of actually getting to know each other, going beyond our public personas, beyond our public facing walls. And I think, broken recognizes broken. You had your lots of issues, you were also “not normal” and struggling. We worked together because we provided the other equilibrium, I balanced your social issues and you offered me your crazy, adrenaline filled life. And I do truly think you brought out the best in me, and vice versa. 

As cliché as that sounds, we were puzzle pieces that fit together. We complement one another. 

There is something to be said about being forced to write things down. It forces you to face the truth. It forces you to actually say things that are often flying thoughts, to put words on feelings and emotions. And those words can be incredibly scary, but the act of actually identifying them also comes with great relief. Like a burden’s been lifted from one’s shoulder, because it’s true. It is what it is, and once it’s said, one can start to accept it and move on.  
  
That’s why we never said anything. We danced around it, longing stares, stolen glances, smiles and the brushing of a hand. We spoke wordlessly, understanding flowing between us. You had your violin, and I had my blog, and you made tea, and I got Chinese, and you looked at me and I looked at you and. It was obvious, it was clear, we both knew. Everyone knew, really, but we really knew, just how much, just how deep. We knew and we didn’t say anything, because we didn’t need to. We shared this, these emotions, this feeling, and it was enough.  
  
At least, I thought it was enough. But when it was ripped away, when you lose everything, when all of a sudden, you don’t have anything anymore, you realize that it wasn’t enough. Nothing would have been enough. You should have taken everything you could, made it the most it could be. I should have told you, I should have told you every day, I should have told you over and over again, just to be sure. Just to be sure you knew just how much you mattered. Just how much it all meant. Because now you’re gone, and now I can’t. I will never be able to tell you, and I carry the weight of my weakness, the weight of my fear.  
  
Words are just words, but they’re so much more. How could I put it down now, how could I make it real, when you’ll never get to receive them? What’s the point of saying it now, when you’ll never hear it?


	2. In Never Sent Letters

There is something to be said about being forced to put down words onto paper. I never understood why you wrote your blog, what was the point of repeating things that had happened, what was the point of all your little comments, especially when no one was reading it? Why would you feel the need to write about all these things that happened to us? But then I started writing these letters, writing to you. Letters you would never receive, letters you would never read, and still, I wrote them. It is like talking to you, because I didn’t really need to talk to you to know what you’d say. I could hear you in my head, I could hear you answering in my thoughts. I know you so well, I can predict you. Even here, even after all these months, even though I know the real you isn’t talking to me anymore. Well, the real you thinks I’m dead, so it makes sense that you wouldn’t be talking to me. But the version of you that lives in my head…    
This is the only way I can interact with anyone. The only thing keeping me sane, keeping me focused on my plan. I keep writing these letters to you, but really, to no one, because they’re the only way I can keep in touch with my life from before. 

I’ve never been good with emotions, never been good with sentiment. But being forced to face the words, to pick them so I can write down my thoughts, has really helped me try and vocalize things that seemed abstract and unexplainable before. Perhaps it is because I’ve never expressed them before, or because I don’t have much experience as I never let anyone close, but it’s been a real hurricane, taking me by surprise and destroying everything in its path.   
  
It is very difficult to make things official. To really say things. We can live them and communicate them through actions and glances and smiles, but saying it? Actually choosing the words, and letting them out in the open, letting them slide off your tongue into the universe and hoping that they’ll reach their destination with the intended impact, that is absolutely terrifying. I often admired those who could be so openly emotional. It was never something I desired to do, it would implicate way too many consequences and distract my focus from the Work, but it is something I admire. It takes a lot of courage and strength, and a lot of hope, to express private emotions and inner thoughts in such a way.   
  
You were like me on this, I think. Always a bubbly person, welcoming, warm, friendly. But never about the stuff that actually mattered. Never with your real emotions. I could see them, bubbling under the surface. The walls as high up as mine, I recognized you, and you recognized me. Two men unable to express things easily, unable to face the truth and dancing around one another for years, refusing to let out the words that would have made things so simple. Refusing to say the things that desperately needed to be said. 

It’s only once I was gone, only once I couldn’t say them anymore, that I realized just how important words are. You think it’s enough, just having, just wanting, but it isn’t. It isn’t, because it’s never complete, it’s never the whole thing, the full thing, the real thing. It’s there, it exists, but it’s like you never really got it. Just out of reach, and all you’d need is to jump, but you don’t, and you never did, and now it’s too late and you have to live with the fact that the words will never be out there. The words will never reach their destination. If you’d said them and gotten a negative answer, you could start to move on, start to heal. But when you never took the chance, when you never had the guts, when you were too afraid, you can never move on. Your life becomes a series of what ifs, a series of regrets, a series of almost.   
  
We were almost something, weren’t we? Almost something. What exactly, we’ll never know. But we were almost there. Only a few words away, but we were terrified. You had so much baggage, the hate from your father, the isolation your sister had to go through after her coming out, your military past haunting you and making you ashamed, you were cut deep, too deep, to ever consider openly admitting it. You seized every opportunity to deny it, and frankly, it hurt. It hurt so bad, because you weren’t only saying there would never be anything: you were denying it as if it was something to be ashamed of. As if the thought of even just being gay was something that needed to be hidden, that shouldn’t be broadcast, that was shameful. And you know, I’ve always been.   
  
I’ve always known, even when I didn’t let myself feel these things. It was always there, always in the back of my mind. I never needed to come out, no one cared, and no one questioned it, assuming I was totally disinterested in relationships and sexual encounters. They weren’t wrong, I wasn’t interested, but that was before I met you. You changed everything. Suddenly, I cared, and I cared a lot. I cared about everything, about what you thought, what you did, what you liked and disliked. Suddenly, a new room was created in my mind palace and it quickly took over, like a vine twirling and creeping into everything, sneaking into all the other spheres of my mind. Everything became related to you, and reminded me of you, and that’s how I knew.   
  
I knew that I had never met anyone like you, and that I wanted everything you had to offer. And if, sadly, all that was, became sharing a flat, I would be contended with that. Fortunately, you wanted to be friends, that was okay. Colleagues. Sometimes more, something in your eyes gave that away. I could tell that sometimes, when you looked at me, you saw more. More than just a colleague, more than just a friend. But you weren’t ready, you never were. The homophobia was so deeply rooted inside of you, you couldn’t allow yourself to really feel these things, to really consider such a relationship. And so, you hid your desires, and I ignored everything I saw.   
  
The smiles, the glances, the touches, I ignored all of it, because what else could I do? I couldn’t bring them up, I couldn’t point them out. I couldn’t build hope upon them, I couldn’t do anything. It was a very painful situation at first, but I got used to it. Wanting was eno-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I deeply believe that Sherlock survived his time away, the pain, the psychological and physical torture, by thinking of John. And I think he could have written letters. Some of them ending more abruptly than he'd have thought, forced to move or surprised by an attack. Letters that would end up burned, lost, destroyed, and never reach their destination.


End file.
